Aion, Champions Online top Sept. PC charts

I’m sure that NCsoft is delighted and more than a little relieved that its newest massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Aion, has topped U.S. retail charts for the month of Sept., according to sales data from NPD Group.

Another MMO, Champions Online, also managed to take the number 3 spot in Sept., followed by World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and the Aion Collector’s Edition SKU.

That means that 4 out of the 5 top spots in Sept. were occupied by MMO releases. Out of the top ten, six were MMO products  - and of those, 3 were World of Warcraft related. Go figure. Anyway here’s the top ten for the moth of Sept.:

Best Selling PC Game Software for Sept. 2009:

1. Aion (NCsoft)

2. The Sims 3 (Electronic Arts)

3. Champions Online (Atari)

4. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Blizzard)

5. Aion Collector’s Edition (NCsoft)

6. Mumbo Jumbo Assortment (Mumbo Jumbo)

7. The Sims 2: Double Deluxe (Electronic Arts)

8. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest (Blizzard)

9. Reel Deal Slots: Treasures of the Far East (Phantom EFX)

10. World of Warcraft (Blizzard)

PureSim Baseball for free

Matrix Games and Shaun Sullivan announced that the popular baseball management series, PureSim Baseball, is now available for free .The download of the full free version of the game is available from various mirror sites including Strategy Informer, Gamer’s Hell, Patches Scrolls, and Fan Gaming.
Previous owners of PureSim Baseball can download this new free full release to check out all the new features and improvements and future updates.

“PureSim Baseball lets baseball fans manage their teams in depth. Whether it’s negotiating trades in the off season or signaling to the first base runner to steal, PureSim Baseball delivers like a 100 MPH fastball,” said David Heath, Director of Operations at Matrix Games. “We’ve been happy to work with Shaun Sullivan on two past releases (2005 and 2007) of this great game and we’re pleased to help spread the word about this new free release. Hopefully this will lead to more gamers discovering what a great baseball game this is.”

Matrix Games has made a habit of working with developers and other publishers to make some great games available for free, often in updated or improved releases. Steel Panthers: World at War, Gary Grigsby’s War in Russia, Gary Grigsby’s Pacific War and Titans of Steel - to name just a few.

Find out more by visiting http://www.matrixgames.com.

Capcom Preps Three for PC

Not everyone has given up on PC gamers. Capcom plans to deliver 3 games to the PC: Resident Evil 5, Street Fighter IV and Bionic Commando. The first game to be released for the PC will be Street Fighter IV in July. the rest will roll out later this year. All three games will feature optimizations for the Pc including remappable controls (including mouse and keyboard support), support for both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10, higher screen resolutions and online connectivity for multiplayer.

All three games will be available both at retail and via various digital distribution methods, including Capcom’s own e-store. Learn more by visiting www.capcom.com.

Warrior Epic Closed Beta Opens

True Games and Possibility Space have officially launched the closed beta for Warrior Epic today. Warrior Epic is an amalgamation of online team-based action and role-playing rolled into an MMO framework where players can buy customizations and consumables to enhance gameplay using a micro transaction system using real world currency.

Naturally, if you’re a tightwad, suffering from the swine flu or are simply unemployed you don’t have to spend a dime to play this game. By the way, If someone made a video game about Swine Flu, would it be like Left 4 Dead but with people turning into pigs instead of zombies? If you know the answer drop me a note..

So what are some of the high points of the game, according to its developers? The first is the death system: instead of punishing players with stat or equipment loss, Warrior Epic offers a more forgiving death system where you get three chances to fall before you are returned to your warrior hall. The biggest drawback is that you might have to make the long trek back to where you died to continue, but that’s about it.

The game also makes it easy to customize your experience: You can customize you virtual space the way you want, bring your friends in for private game sessions or team up and take on other players. There are lots of little tweaks you have access to when you play - some free and some for sale, but the game offers a bunch of options.

the other thing worth noting is that the average play session is about 20 - 30 minutes long, so if you just want to have a casual romp into a region it shouldn’t take you too long to make progress and step out if you so desire.

There are lots of other interesting things going on in this game, but i’ll let the web site explain the rest. You can learn more and sign up for the closed beta by visiting www.warriorepic.com.

WOW Dominates PC Games Chart

PC game sales for the week ending April 18 are in, showing that the WOW expansion World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King was the top selling item. But the big surprise for the week is Gas Power Games’ Demigod debuting at #3 - right behind The Sims 2 Double Deluxe. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor came in at number 4, while Empire: Total War rounded out the top five.

EA had 4 titles in this week’s top ten, followed by Blizzard Entertainment with 3 titles and the rest filled out by single titles from THQ, Sega, and Stardock. As always, these are retail numbers and do not include digital distribution sales. Full list below:

1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Blizzard Entertainment, Activision)
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe (EA, Maxis)
3. Demigod (Gas Powered Games, Stardock)
4. Company Of Heroes: Tales Of Valor (Relic Entertainment, THQ)
5. Empire: Total War (The Creative Assembly, Sega)
6. Left 4 Dead (Valve Software, EA)
7. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest (Blizzard Entertainment, Activision)
8. World Of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, Activision)
9. The Sims 2: Apartment Life (EA, Maxis)
10. Spore (EA, Maxis)

Nielson: PS2 Most Played Online in 2008

Nielson released some interesting numbers for consoles played in 2008 (Jan. to Oct.) that reveal the PlayStation 2 as the most popular. Based on the percentage of of all console-gaming minutes played, the PS2 scored 30.2 percent, beating out the Xbox 360 (18.3 percent) and Wii (13.5 percent). Meanwhile, the last generation Xbox (9.1 percent) beat out the PS3 (7.7 percent) and GameCube (4.4 percent). “Other” (we assume mobile phones, PSP, DS and other devices) managed 16.9 percent.

Another report from Nielson also showed that World of Wacraft was the most popular PC game, raking in an impressive 671 minutes per week. Other popular games included Warcraft III (328 minutes), Half-Life 2 (288 minutes), Spore (268 minutes), and PopCap Games’ (133 minutes).

A Good Old Games Revolution

Good Old Games, the DRM-free online source for classic PC games, announced that it has added several of Revolution Software’s adventure games from the popular Broken Sword series. The first games to be available on the site include Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror and Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon. Also available from GOG and Revolution Software are the classic point-and-click adventure games Beneath a Steel Sky and Lure of the Temptress.

All of these games retail for $5.99 each and are fully compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista. Find out more at gog.com. It’s as good a way to ring in the new year as any, my friends. Now if only they would bring Gothic 2 into the fold..